The Partnership School is a collaboration between MSU and the Starkville Oktibbeha School District to serve all 6th and 7th graders in the district on the MSU campus. While there are some K-12 schools on other university campuses, they typically serve only a small portion of students in a given district or locale, but the Partnership School serves every single student in the Starkville Oktibbeha School District.
This 128,000 square foot building houses up to 1000 students and includes facilities for athletics, band, music, arts, robotics, foreign languages, labs, and outdoor resources including an activity field, walking track and outdoor gardens and dining. The academic classrooms are arranged in pods—each learning pod has a math, social studies, language arts, science and/or technology classroom along with a science lab for a team of about 125 students. The school is comprised of eight pods, four sixth grade and four seventh grade pods. Each pod classroom has one wall of windows that serves to open the classroom for outside observations, allowing MSU students to observe and learn to teach without interrupting instruction and allowing teachers to extend students learning space into the collaboration area.
The building includes 6 MSU classrooms, an MSU Office Suite and shared conference and work spaces for MSU staff, faculty and students to learn, work and collaborate within the school.
In specific the 6th and 7th grade experience supports MSU teacher preparation in that elementary licensure includes grades K-6 grades and secondary licensure includes grades 7-12 grades.
Preservice educators in MSU degree programs observe and learn innovative practices they can bring into the schools they will serve in. In-service educators have opportunities to collaborate with MSU faculty and staff for programs and research, as well as, opportunities that allow them to provide insight in how to best shape the preservice teacher experience and to learn more about curriculum and teaching practices to carry back into their classrooms.